The intention is to introduce you to the people who have been carving their own path...with no care for what anybody thinks.

We try not to post things that are still for sale but sometimes post things that are not easily available. If you like what you hear, then find these people and tell them how great they are.

Better still, tell them and then seek out their new releases and buy them. We add links, when they are reliable and active, so that you can keep track if you so wish.

Always go straight to the artist or the label where possible. That way, the money goes straight to the people responsible for this art. These people rely on our support to keep going and make more quality releases!

Please feel free to leave comments as you go along...at least then we know you appreciate this stuff (or otherwise) and you're not just a bunch of freeloading file collectors.

If you made this music and we have pissed you off by posting any of this, please leave a comment in the post and the offending articles will be removed.

This is a four 3" CDr boxset released on the excellent Striate Cortex in a rapidly sold out edition of 50 in 2012.

Here you get Neil Campbell's Astral Social Club (with Paul Walsh), Daniel Thomas (who also runs the brilliant Sheepscar Light Industrial label), Midwich (aka Rob Hayler who also runs the must-see Radio Free Midwich blog) and Ashtray Navigations (this time around as Phil Todd and Melanie O'Dubhshlaine aka Melanie Delaney who also records as Ocelocelot).

This was released to celebrate the 50th Striate Cortex release and the birth of Sheepscar Light Industrial.

Whilst I have your attention...go and visit Daniel's and Sheepscar's bandcamp pages where there is a wealth of fine material available as name your price downloads.

Salvatore (aka K Salvatore) are Jason Meagher (who also records with Coach Fingers and The Helix) and Pat Murano (who records as Decimus and as a member of Key Of Shame, Malkuth, Raajmahal and Safiyya). Both are also members of No-Neck Blues Band. They also recorded at least one tape with Dylan Nyoukis as Beautifull Music Company which was released on Dylan's Chocolate Monk label (if anybody has that one to share, I'd be prepared to love you for a short while).

These tapes are the result of weekly meetings where they scuplted a series of six continuous improvisations. They were then ostensibly released in an edition of ten copies on NNCK's Sound@One label but were in effect given away to friends and family...and they disappeared from public gaze.

They have recently been resurrected in vinyl form as a lavish six-disc boxset on Italy's Planam label. Presumably, there has been some editing in the vinyl version given the length of the taped improvisations and I'm not sure if there has been any remastering. The label does not appear to have an obvious internet presence. However, Planam is a sub-division of Alga Marghen which has a presence on facebook...I just can't engage with that platform so don't know how much information is available there. What I do know is that there are only 145 copies of the LP version and they are relatively expensive. I also know that this music would sound truly astonishing on vinyl. You can still find it in some distros so hopefully this will inspire some to go and pick it up before it disappears again!

Planam have described this as "Akin to a 5+ hour kidnapping ordeal that culminates, not with freedom restored, but instead disembowlment in a sad man's bathtub." Hmmm...maybe.

This is a series of CDRs released on Paul Bradley's Twenty Hertz label between 2004 and 2005. Volumes 1 and 3 are for free download on Paul's Bandcamp page - the links are included below. As far as I know, Volume 6 was originally the Bass Communion disc but that was quickly deleted and replaced by a work by Paul that you can get here.

Nijiumu (literally "the blending of that which is and that which is not") were Asahito Nanjo, Keiji Haino, Shizuo Uchida and Tetuzi Akiyama.

There is an excellent and comprehensive interview with Asahito on Squealer.

"Nijiumu concentrate on creating an atmosphere. There was no clear concept, sometimes we wouldn't even talk about what we were going to do. Nijiumu is like Fushitsusha in that it was started with the aim of doing something that no one else had thought of. It doesn't have any clear philosophy behind it.

There were four of us - Matsuoka, Uchida, Haino and me. The first time we played Haino was on vocals, percussion and small ethnic instruments, I was on bass, Matsuoka on piano, and Uchida played bass and synthesized percussion. So there were a lot of electric instruments. We used to play once a week in Nerima for about three hours. After I left [in 1990], Nijiumu became more and more Haino's band."

These are two CDRs that Asahito released on his (controversial) La Musica Records. They feature two live recordings (they appear to be recorded live in the studio) from 1990. They were mastered by Asahito at La Musica Studio in 1999 so I think it's fair to say that is also the year of release.

Imagine Dead Can Dance playing cover versions of The Lemon Kittens (or vice versa) and you're close but nowhere near.

CD released on Alchemy Records as part of the Hijokaidan Rarity series in 2000 featuring a 27 minute feast which previously appeared on a compilation LP in 1980 plus a previously unreleased improvisational work.

"Guido Hübner founded Das Synthetische Mischgewebe (aka DSM) in the early 1980's in Berlin. With a loose ensemble of individuals of different disciplines DSM worked in many different forms of artistic expressions ranging from concerts and performances to mixed-media installations with topics in neurology and cognitive science. Works have been presented in most parts of Europe, New York, Montreal and Sao Paulo. However, DSM is mostly recognised for it's musical output, having released numerous cassettes, vinyl records and CD's on labels based in Europe, Japan and the United States. The descriptive keyword for the music is "montage" framed by fragment and collage. Mostly, but not exclusively, working with concrète and electronic sounds, the interest of the experimental approach is to explore elements where a given combination of sounds is perceived as associated, united, blended together to appear as a continuity and where disconnected, fragmented, divided components that evoke rupture and how both can be combined and shaped into a significant structure." Chronoglide

The DSM backcatalogue appears to be extremely partial, even on official sites...if anybody has been able to find a comprehensive record, please get in touch.

He really nails his colours to the mast on this one and ably demonstrates what a great guitarist he is. There are covers of Brazilian jazz guitarist and composer Luiz Floriano Bonfá, American jazz bassist and composer Jaco Pastorius, Japanese reeds improviser Kazutoki Umezu (who he also collaborates with in the Kazutoki Umezu KIKI Band) and Brazilian multi-instrumentalist and composer Antonio Carlos Jobim.

There are also covers of "Georgia On My Mind" (originally conceived by Hoagy Carmichael) and "Jamaica Farewell" (originally by the father of Jamaican calypso Irving Burgie but probably better known for a 1956 cover by Harry Belafonte). Kind of reminds me of when I saw Sir Richard Bishop live and he started to play "Somewhere Over The Rainbow". My first reaction was along the lines of "wtf" until he climbed inside its skin and claimed it as his own, easily dissolving any cultural baggage I was carrying with me. This is what happens here and I find these covers deeply touching. He's a genius!

This CD features a live set recorded at Manda-La2 in Tokyo on September the 16th, 1994. It was released on Maboroshi No Sekai in 1996.

Here we get Natsuki Kido on acoustic guitar with Yuji Katsui on violin and Keiji Haino on both 6 and 12 string guitars and flute and harp.

This is completely free form improvisational work and full of cultural reference points that I can not possibly grasp. It is also very great... although your gratification will not be delivered immediately.

This would undoubtably be filed under jazz by some...but "jazz" is as unutterably meaningless as "noise" and "experimental". I don't think that I've heard anything quite like this...but I suppose if you gave me long enough then I would think of something. That would only colour this work and would be quite pointless...

CD released on Tatsuya Yoshida's Magaibutsu label initially in 2004 and then re-released in 2009 with bonus live tracks. The label website reopened a couple of months ago after quite a period of inactivity...you can buy this and many other great things over there!

Again this features Natsuki Kido on guitar, Tatsuya Yoshida on drums but with Mitsuru Nasuno on bass. Strangely, this reminded me of the completely different NoMeansNo...but then heads of on a completely different trajectory.

A relatively short CDr released on the Acid Mothers Temple label as part of the Gold Disc Series in 2000.

As well as featuring Natsuki Kido on Guitar, Vocals, Synthesizer and Organ...we have Kawabata Makoto contributing electronics, Yuji Katsui on violin, Tatsuya Yoshida on drums and Atsushi Tsuyama on bass.